Debris from the A321 Russian airliner lies on the ground after the plane crashed in Wadi al-Zolomat, a mountainous area in Egypt’s Sinai Peninsula. The British government
suspended all flights between the UK and the Egyptian resort of Sharm el-Sheikh after US and UK officials said they believed the plane may have been brought down by an explosive device.

Russian orthodox worshippers attend a service marking Unity Day inside the Cathedral of the Assumption in Moscow. Unity Day is a national holiday established in 2005 to replace the commemorations of the Bolshevik revolution.

A couple arrive on the Greek island of Lesbos after crossing the Aegean Sea from Turkey. The latest UN figures, which show that 218,000 people made the perilous Mediterranean crossing last month,
confirm fears that the end of the summer has not stemmed the flow of refugees.

Tents are reflected in a puddle at the refugee camp known as the Jungle in Calais. Aid groups have reported a surge in the numbers of
unaccompanied children living in the
camp with no support from the French state.

Migrants and refugees look from a train heading to Serbia from the Greek-Macedonian border near Gevgelija. German chancellor Angela Merkel performed an
abrupt U-turn on her open-door policy towards people fleeing Syria’s civil war, with Berlin announcing that the hundreds of thousands of Syrians entering Germany would not be granted asylum or refugee status.

Syrian captives are held inside a cage in Douma, the largest opposition stronghold on the outskirts of Damascus. It has been reported that a major Syrian rebel group, Jaysh al-Islam, is using caged captives as ‘human shields’ in an attempt to prevent Syrian government and Russian airstrikes.

The dwellings of Tibetan Buddhist nuns and monks are seen on a hillside at the Larung Wuming Buddhist Institute in the remote Garze Tibetan Autonomous Prefecture. Located high in the mountains of Sichuan, China, the institute was founded in 1980 by an influential lama of the Nyingma sect and is widely regarded as the world’s largest and most prominent centre for Tibetan Buddhist studies.

In another photograph by Kevin Frayer in Sichuan, a Tibetan Buddhist nomad family walks on a hillside following prayers at the Utmost Bliss Dharma assembly. The last of four annual assemblies, the week-long gathering takes place in the ninth month of the Tibetan calendar and marks Buddha’s descent from the heavens.
Click here to see more images of the Utmost Bliss Dharma assembly.

Children of street vendors eat a roadside meal in Yangon, Myanmar. The country is holding what is viewed as its best chance for a free and credible election in 25 years. Myanmar’s opposition leader,
Aung San Suu Kyi, has vowed to form a reconciliation government in which she would be ‘above the president’ if her National League for Democracy party wins.

A horse struggles in the mud in the small town of Bento Rodrigues, Brazil, after a dam burst in the state of Minas Gerais. Rescuers have begun to search for survivors after two dams burst at an iron ore mine in the mountainous area.

Palestinian fishermen check their nets on the shore of the Mediterranean Sea near the city of Rafah. An Egyptian naval patrol shot dead a Palestinian fisherman and wounded another off the coast near the border between Hamas-ruled Gaza and Egypt, a Gaza health ministry spokesman said.

Palestinian protesters hurl stones at Israeli soldiers during clashes in the West Bank city of Hebron. Israeli security forces shot dead a Palestinian who deliberately drove over an Israeli at a West Bank junction south of Jerusalem. The attacker was identified as a 22-year-old from the divided southern city of Hebron. The incident occurred just after police removed several roadblocks in East Jerusalem, following an assessment that the situation was calming down after a month of violence.

In Istanbul, a bus is driven past supporters of Turkey’s Justice and Development party as they celebrate the first results in the country’s general election. Two days after winning the election, the government resumed a
crackdown on journalists and political rivals of president Recep Tayyip Erdoğan.

In this handout photograph obtained by Reuters this week, NASA’s launchpad in Virginia, US, is seen as the Orbital ATK Antares rocket suffers equipment failure six seconds after launch in October last year. Hundreds of millions of dollars worth of equipment, ranging from ‘classified cryptographic’ gear to school science experiments, was destroyed in a giant fireball after technicians detonated a self-destruct mechanism because of a ‘catastrophic’ anomaly.
Click here to see a video of the explosion.

Burned stumps are photographed as peatland forest is cleared for a palm oil plantation on the outskirts of the city of Palangkaraya, Indonesia. Air pollution has been a problem for the past 18 years in Indonesia because of the illegal burning of forests on the islands of Sumatra and Borneo to clear land for the production of pulp, paper and palm oil.

Cows are photographed in this aerial view of a deforested plot of the Amazon near Rio Pardo, Brazil. The town, a settlement of about 4,000 people in the rainforest, has risen where only jungle stood less than 25 years ago. Loggers who first cleared the forest were followed by ranchers and farmers, then small merchants and prospectors.

14 year-old Charlie Lines is hugged by Sonny Bill Williams after the New Zealand player
gave him his gold medal following the Rugby World Cup final at Twickenham in London. The All Black acted after seeing a security guard rugby tackle the boy, who had run on the pitch following New Zealand’s 34-17 victory over Australia. Williams said afterwards: ‘I was walking around doing a lap of honour with the boys and a young fella came running out and he got smoked by the security guard, like full-on tackled. I felt sorry for the little fella.’